One of the largest emergency shelters in Denver’s system is again offering refuge from the cold this weekend after Mayor Mike Johnston unilaterally opened the site Friday — despite the City Council rejecting a contract for it late last year.
The Aspen, formerly a DoubleTree hotel in northeast Denver, has space for up to 250 people in its ballroom and will be open as freezing temperatures pummel the Mile High City for the next few days.
Johnston’s decision came after the city’s four other emergency shelters reached capacity on Thursday, the first night of the cold snap. The temperatures, expected to fall to near-zero Friday night and early Saturday, have the potential to cause frostbite in less than 30 minutes without proper attire.
“With life-threatening cold settling over the city and people at risk of suffering serious injury or death, Mayor Johnston informed Council this morning that we will be opening the ballrooms at 4040 Quebec (St.) for temporary emergency cold weather shelter,” spokesman Jon Ewing wrote in a statement Friday.
The near-failure to open needed cold-weather shelter space is just the latest chapter in an growing list of disagreements between the mayor and council members in which both sides have pointed fingers at one another.
Denver extends severe weather shelter activation — and adds space — as cold grips city
During a meeting on Dec. 8, 11 of the council’s 13 members voted to reject a contract to use the Aspen’s large space as a cold-weather shelter. (A separate contract with another provider, Urban Alchemy, covers the Aspen’s day-to-day use as a noncongregate shelter in the city’s homelessness initiative.)
Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, whose district includes the shelter, said at the time that the mayor had promised her in 2023 that the site wouldn’t be used for the purpose of cold-weather sheltering.
“My district is already overrepresented with shelters, with eight of them,” Lewis said. “This is ridiculous.”
Only Councilmen Kevin Flynn and Darrell Watson voted to approve the contract last month.
Another council-approved contract with Bayaud Works allows the city to use the ballroom space for short-term emergencies, Ewing said, and that is how the mayor’s office was able to open it Friday.
Lewis has repeatedly asked the mayor’s administration to spread out the locations of the city’s homelessness services since she joined the council in 2023. Now, she says the mayor’s office is manufacturing an emergency to sidestep her continued protestations.
Johnston “has failed to run the city with a long-term strategy,” she said in an interview Friday.
Lewis said there shouldn’t be a cold-weather shelter at the same place as noncongregate housing. Instead, she asked for the Aspen’s ballroom to be used as a navigation center offering resources to homeless people.
But Johnston’s team said they were taken by surprise when the council rejected the contract just as the winter months were setting in and hadn’t had nearly enough time to find enough shelter space since then.
“The real emergency is that it is 5 degrees outside and people are going to die if we don’t get them inside,” Ewing said.
The Aspen made the most sense to use, he said, because it’s already set up with cots, showers and bathrooms. A site that’s well-known among the city’s homeless population, it also mostly serves people who are already in that area, he said.
“We do not just have shelter sites lying around. There are only so many spaces, and there is a likelihood we would need to hold community meetings, go through a full council process and potentially even rezone,” Ewing said.
He added that the city didn’t plan to use the Aspen for cold-weather shelter next year. A new site for emergencies hasn’t been chosen yet, in part because of the limited options.
Lewis said Friday the mayor has “had three years to figure out what cold-weather sheltering should look like.” She also said: “Of course I don’t want folks dying in our streets.”
The city’s sheltering needs have increased since 2023 because of a revised policy that now calls for opening emergency shelters when temperatures drop below 25 degrees, rather than 10 degrees back then, Ewing said.
While Denver’s weather is forecasted to be warmer on Monday, there’s no sign of thaw when it comes to the relationship between some council members and the mayor.
“It’s the mayor’s responsibility to run the city as the executive, and if he doesn’t run the city as the executive, then … we might need to switch seats,” Lewis said.
Ewing had his own retort: “It is not fair to cause a disruption and then blame us for scrambling to solve that issue.”
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